Where I realise that sometimes doing nothing is the best move
Outside of our house there are three hedges. They’re around ten years old now. We’ve been in charge of them for three.
They promise a future of privacy and sound dampening from a busy main road; but, for now, they just about reach my waist.
Two summers ago, they randomly started dying. Dreams of a hedge outside the front window evaporated almost instantly. A quick rifle through the leaves and the internet told me that Box tree Caterpillars had taken up residence.
Hungry little buggers according to Google, capable of stripping an entire plant in a couple of weeks.
Aggressive solutions for an aggressive pest. I might want to consider removing them by hand for a couple of weeks, introduce nematodes or even just cut the hedges down and replace them with something else.
Well, I did none of those things.
Suddenly it was a year later. The hedges hadn’t died. They had, in fact, healed and continued to grow. I didn’t give it much thought until I started noticing everyone elses dead box hedges.
These people had obviously done the same as me, i.e. nothing, with drastically different results.
I soon realised that birds were clearing the hedges for us. There’s a big tree on the pavement outside where they hang out, and the caterpillars are essentially a buffet on their doorstep.
The caterpillars come out twice a year now and I watch the birds when I can. I also give them water.
My point here is that doing nothing was a valid solution. It let nature take its course.
Obviously, it isn’t a universal solution - as the box hedge desert around me attests - but it wasn’t on any of the lists I consulted.
Now I try to remember that the internet may tell you to burn the world down when you don’t need to.